The Corrective Effect of Fact-Checking and Hostile Media Perceptions: A Three-Way Interaction Model between Social Media News Usage and Political Misperceptions

With the proliferation of fake news and misinformation, fact-checking journalism is booming worldwide. However, whether its corrective effect is still valid and generalizable in daily news consumption settings outside the laboratory requires further inves­tigation. In addition, some partisans argue that the content of fact-checking news has a partisan bias that makes it unfavorable to particular political figures or parties. This perceived bias is beginning to take root in some citizens’ minds. Using data from a national survey during the 2022 Korean presidential election (N = 948), we explore whether hostile media perception theory extends to biased perceptions of fact-checking news and affects its corrective effect. The results of the three-way interaction model indicate that exposure to fact-checking news helps reduce citizens’ belief in political misinformation when using social media news. However, perceived hostility to fact-checking news reduces the corrective effect of fact-checking. Specifically, those who are frequently exposed to fact-checking news but have a strong hostile media perception related to fact-checking news are less likely to assess misinformation more accurately than those with low perceived hostility when using social media news. The implications and limitations of this study are discussed.